Overview of the Collection

Creator

Sanders, Barkev

Title

Barkev Sanders Papers

Dates

1947-1990 (inclusive)

19471990

Quantity

16 containers., (9 linear feet of shelf space.)

Collection Number

Cage
623

Summary

Professional papers, correspondence, and
records pertaining to the Hanford mortality study in which Sanders was a
participant from 1964 to 1976. The papers also include Sanders' involvement
with the Social Security Mission of Japan, the United States Social Security
Administration, real estate, and the personal materials.

Barkev Sanders was born Barkev Sandragortzian in Tagh, Shatach, Turkey
to an Armenian family on July 2, 1903. His father was a teacher and a
Protestant minister. Shortly after his birth, Sanders was taken to the city of
Van, where he spent most of his childhood. In 1915, during the Turkish
persecution of Armenians, Sanders and his family fled Turkey and relocated to
Alkamar, Russian Armenia, where, also in 1915, both of his parents and two of
his brothers died. Following his sojourn as a refugee in Russian Armenia, he
emigrated to the United States, where he changed his surname to Sanders.

In 1923, Sanders entered Bridgewater State Teachers' College, in
Massachusetts, where he received a Bachelor's degree in education. In 1926, he
entered Columbia University, where he earned both a Master's degree in social
psychology (1927) and a Ph.D. in sociology and statistics (1929). In 1940,
Sanders also received a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University, following
his 1939 admission to the District of Columbia Bar. He was also a Fellow of
Columbia University (1928-1929) and a Research Fellow of the Brookings
Institution (1930-1931).

Sanders' professional life was as wide ranging as his academic
background. In 1929, as a medical statistician for the Veterans' Administration
(VA), he completed a study of expected rates of hospitalization for mental
diseases among ex-servicemen, which was used as the basis of VA hospital
construction plans prior to World War II.

In 1930, Sanders served as a research consultant for the White House
Conference on Child Health and Development. In this capacity, Sanders provided
a quantitative demonstration of the influence of environment on physical growth
and development.

During 1931 and 1932, Sanders worked as a statistician for the
Committee to Study Automobile Accident Compensation, which was sponsored by the
Columbia University Research Council on Social Sciences. This study provided
the foundation for the concept of no-fault auto insurance.

From 1932 to 1935, Sanders was employed by the U.S. Public Health
Service, first as a medical statistician (1932-1933), in which capacity he
studied addicts and other mental deviants, then as a psychologist (1933-1935),
in which capacity he developed psychological and aptitude tests. During 1934,
on loan from the U.S. Public Health Service, Sanders served as a research
supervisor for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. In this position,
Sanders developed a study, which was later conducted, on white collar job
opportunities for blacks in America.

From 1935 to 1937, Sanders worked for the U.S. Department of Justice
as technical director of the Attorney General's Survey on Release Procedures,
which was published in 1938. In 1937, Sanders moved to the Bureau of Research
and Statistics Social Security Board, where he served as Section Chief of the
Division of Health Studies. In this position, Sanders developed and conducted a
study on American family composition, which was the basis of the 1939
amendments to the Social Security Act.

In 1939, Sanders became Chief of the Division of Health and Disability
Studies within the Social Security Administration, where he designed and
conducted studies that formed the basis of plans to protect families from the
economic consequences of ill health. While in this position, Sanders also
expanded his activities within the Social Security Administration to include
in-service training lectures on the topic of illness as a cause of economic
insecurity.

During 1947, the Social Security Administration loaned Sanders to the
Social Security Mission to Japan. As a member of the Mission, Sanders advised
General Douglas MacArthur on the design and development of a social insurance
system for post-World War II Japan. The Mission's recommendations were accepted
and put into operation.

In 1948, Sanders became a consultant on disabilty for the Social
Security Administration's Division of Research and Statistics. In this
position, Sanders helped states develop their own temporary disability
insurance programs, as well as working with the Bureau of Old Age and
Survivors' Insurance for amendments to the Social Security Act and a program
for permanent and total disability insurance.

From 1950 to 1955, Sanders served as a research consultant with the
Bureau of Old Age and Survivors' Insurance. In this position, Sanders continued
his work on a permanent and total disability insurance program, which was
enacted into law in 1954.

During this same period, Sanders also taught college level courses on
a part time basis. At the Graduate School of the American Univerity
(1948-1958), Sanders taught "Social and Economic Aspects of Health" and
"Research Methods in Medical Care." Sanders also taught statistics courses at
the Catholic University of America (1951-1959) and "Medical Economics" at the
Johns Hopkins University (1952-1958). Sanders was also principal
investigator/consultant for two studies at George Washington University. One
study (1954-1970) was on patent utlization. The other study (1956-1957)
examined the attitudes of American inventors toward defense inventions. In
addition, in 1957, Sanders became a member of the editorial committee for the
"Patent, Trademark and Copyright Journal of Research and Education" at George
Washington University. He held this post until 1970. Sanders later served as a
consultant and member of the board of the Foundation for Institutes of Research
and Advanced Studies from 1969 to 1975.

From 1955 to 1956, Sanders worked as a research consultant for the
Social Security Administration's Bureau of Old Age and Survivors' Insurance in
its Division of Disability Operations. Also during 1955 and 1956, Sanders
served as a research analyst for the President's Commission on Veterans'
Pensions. The commission's findings were presented to Congress.

In 1956, Sanders transferred to the U.S. Public Health Service out of
frustration with the Social Security Administration's use of what he claimed
were unrealistic cost estimates in the disability insurance program he had
played so important a role in developing. His new job in the Public Health
Service was research consultant with the Division of General Health
Services.

In 1960, while still employed by the Public Health Service, Sanders
began working as a consultant for the United Mine Workers of America Welfare
and Retirement Fund. Sanders advised the director of the the fund in respect to
policies, plans, and prospective costs for the health care of the fund's
beneficiaries. He held this position until 1974. Sanders also did similar
consulting work for the Health Care Services of the Texas Hospital Association
of Trinity University from 1970 to 1972.

In 1964, while on a month's leave from the Public Health Service,
Sanders first went public with his criticisms of the U.S. government's use of
what he considered to be misleading statistics. For the American Medical
Association, Sanders prepared a critique of a government publication, which
claimed that the high rejection rate by the U.S. Selective Service was
attributable to inadequate health care. In his critique, Sanders purported to
demonstrate that the government's thesis and method of approach were
inappropriate and invalid.

Also in 1964, Sanders published an article in "Nation's Business,"
which criticized the Social Security Administration for the use of cost
estimates, which he considered to be unrealistic. Within a month after the
publication of this article, Sanders retired from the U.S. Public Health
Service, which he also considered to be guilty of using unrealistic cost
estimates. Disgusted and frustrated by his experiences with the federal
bureaucracy, Sanders never again worked for the U.S. government except as a
part time consultant to the U.S. Budget Bureau during 1965 and 1966.

In 1964, Sanders was contracted by the Graduate School of Public
Health at the University of Pittsburgh to work as an actuarial consultant on an
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) study on the health of atomic energy workers in
relation to radiation exposures received. Formally, the study's principal
investigator was Dr. Thomas Mancuso, of the University of Pittsburgh.
Nevertheless, Sanders, as the study's statistician, designed and conducted the
research.

In 1971, Sanders, along with Mancuso and health physicist Allen
Brodsky, the study's other co-investigator, presented preliminary findings,
which showed no significant differences in mortality between Hanford atomic
workers and limited matched worker control groups. Following this presentation,
Sanders carried out far more detailed research on atomic worker mortality with
larger control populations and greater details in regard to radiation exposure.
As in the preliminary run, Sanders was able to find no evidence of mortality
differences that could be attributed to low level radiation.

Mancuso, however, became convinced that low level radiation could
constitute a cancer risk, following a 1974 study by Washington State health
researcher Samuel Milham, which suggested that Hanford workers suffered from
disproportionately high rates of cancer. In 1976, Sanders, however, began
circulating a paper without Mancuso's approval, which, based on his own
research, suggested there was no link between low level radiation and
cancer.

The relationship between Mancuso and Sanders rapidly deteriorated.
Within months, Mancuso fired Sanders and replaced him with two British
researchers, Dr. Alice Stewart and George Kneale, her statistician, both of the
University of Birmingham. Stewart and Kneale then subjected Sanders' data to
retrospective analyses, which included only those workers dying of certain
diseases, instead of the entire base population in Sanders' original design.
From these analyses, Mancuso, Stewart, and Kneale concluded that there was a
link between low level radiation and cancer. Their findings were published in
1977.

Sanders loudly protested what he considered to be a twisting of his
research by Mancuso, Stewart, and Kneale. Indeed, many members of the
scientific community backed up Sanders' claims that Stewart's and Kneale's
analyses were not legitimate. In turn, Mancuso's reputation as a scientist
suffered as a result of the controversy. When, in 1977, the AEC's successor,
the Energy Research and Development Agency, removed the health and mortality
study from Mancuso's control and transferred it to the Oak Ridge National
Laboratories, in Tennessee, Mancuso accused the federal government and the
nuclear industry of conspiring to suppress his finding that low level radiation
was linked to cancer.

In the wake of this controversy, Sanders abandoned research and
returned to his home in the San Diego area, where he had lived since 1969 when
he relocated from Bethesda, Maryland. In 1977, he received a broker's license
and worked as a real estate investment counselor as late as 1990. As of this
writing, Sanders is living in La Jolla, California with his wife, the former
Bessie Gruber, with whom he fathered two children.

The Barkev Sanders Papers primarily consist of Sanders' professional
papers and records of the Hanford mortality study in which he was involved from
1964 to 1976. There are also a much smaller number of miscellaneous papers
related to other aspects of Sanders' life and career, including his involvement
with the Social Security Mission of Japan, the United States Social Security
Administration, real estate, and personal material related to his retirement
years.

Series One is General Correspondence. This series includes mostly
professional correspondence sent or received by Barkev Sanders between 1951 and
1990. Major correspondents include A.F. Becher, Chief - AEC Safety Office, Oak
Ridge, Tennessee (1969-76); Allen Brodsky, co-investigator in AEC Hanford
mortality study (1966-90); Lynn F. Denton, Union Carbide Nuclear Division, Oak
Ridge, Tennessee (1973-76); Robert C. Elston, Professor - School of
Biostatistics, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (1971-76); William E.
Hanna, Director - U.S. Social Security Administration Bureau of Processing and
Accounts (1968-75); Clever W. Kirklin, Professional Research and Support
Services Manager - Hanford Environmental Health Foundation (1969-77); Thomas F.
Mancuso, chief investigator in AEC Hanford mortality study (1966-78); Stephen
S.T. Sefcik, Programmer - Graduate School of Public Health, University of
Pittsburgh (1973-76); and Ron Vergona, Programmer - Graduate School of Public
Health, University of Pittsburgh (1974-75).

Series Two is the General File, which primarily consists of material
related to the AEC Hanford mortality study, although it also includes a much
smaller amount of material related to the Social Security Mission of Japan, the
U.S. Social Security Administration, real estate, and personal material from
Sanders' retirement years.

Preferred Citation

Arrangement

Series One (boxes 1-4) is arranged alphabetically by the surname of
each correspondent. When there is more than one letter or postcard from or to a
single correspondent, that correspondence is arranged in chronological order.
In the rare instances where there is no known surname for a correspondent, the
correspondence is filed according to the first letter of the correspondent's
first name in accord with the alphabetical organization of the series.

Series Two (boxes 5-16), is organized alphabetically by subject.

Acquisition Information

The papers of Barkev Sanders were donated to Washington State
University by Mr. Sanders, through the intermediation of Ron Kathren of
Richland Washington. The papers were received in two installments during 1994,
(accession numbers MS94-04 and MS94-07).

Sanders, Barkev - Further
Instructions in Testing Possible Relationship Between External Whole Body
Radiation and Death Rates Using Dose Level, Animal Dose Frequency and Years
Lapsed Since the Initial Exposure as the Criteria

1973

15 / 147

Sanders, Barkev - The Hanford
Study

1975

15 / 148

Sanders, Barkev - The Inference
of Higher Death from Certain Cancers Among Male Hanford Employees is
Inconclusive and its Association With Radiation Unwarranted